Monday, June 09, 2014

Australian tourist gives birth in Nadi taxi

from w
Although there's usually a travel advisory not to travel on a plane when 7 months pregnant, one tourist did get her doctor's permission to fly in order to attend a friend's wedding in Fiji. However the baby didn't read this and hurried to be born in a Nadi taxi! One thing puzzles me though about the story - why do they need $60,000 to get back to Australia? Even without medical insurers coming up with medivac for them, it should only be the cost of a ticket for the baby, plus accommodation in perhaps Denarau for few weeks waiting for the baby to gain weight. It's not good to put a small baby on a plane because of the pressure so they should wait perhaps six weeks.. but I think there's some exaggeration here regarding the $60.000.. Nadi hospital wouldn't charge much would they? Maybe the taxi driver charged a bit extra!

From Daily Mail
Austraia.

'I was so fearful our baby would die': Australian
mother who's stranded in Fiji with premature baby relives 'horrendous' moment
she gave birth in back of a taxi

·Sydney
couple Jayne and Ashley Wren flew to Fiji last week for a friend's wedding
after getting the all clear from a doctor. Jayne
gave birth to her first child in the back of a taxi in Nadi, Fiji

·'By
the time we reached the front of Nadi Hospital, her head was out,' she said on
Sunday as she described the traumatic birth. Maddison
Jayne Cazna Wren was born at 33 weeks at 1.7kg

·Medical
expenses, accommodation and flights for the baby won't be covered by travel
insurance

·An
online campaign has been launched to help cover the $60,000 needed to transport
Maddi home.

A mother, who is
desperately trying to raise the $60,000 needed to fly her and her premature
daughter home to Australia, has described the 'horrendous' moment she began
giving birth in the back of a taxi on the streets of Nadi, Fiji.

'I was so fearful that
our baby would die,' she told Daily Mail Australia from Fiji, where she is
stranded until they can afford to bring their newborn home - and their baby is
strong enough to travel.

Jayne and Ashley Wren
weren't expecting to be parents until July, so they did not obtain travel
insurance that covered the cost of their baby being born while they were
overseas for a friend's wedding last week.

'The experience of
giving birth in the back of a taxi was horrendous to say the least... This
being my first baby, being in a foreign country and not knowing that the labor
was progressing so quickly,' Mrs Wren explained.

The Sydney couple are
now stranded in Fiji they as they did not obtain travel insurance that covered
the cost of their baby being born. Recounting the
terrifying moment she went into labour early, she said: 'By the time we reached
the front of Nadi Hospital, her head was out and I managed to get from the back
seat of the taxi to a stretcher bed, where I gave birth on all fours to my baby
girl.

'She literally fell out
under my dress on to the mattress of the bed... My husband had to try and catch
her... It all happened so fast.'

Mrs Wren tried her
hardest not to give into contractions but it was no use.

'Everything inside my
head in the back of that cab said "don't push"... but when you are in
labor, your body just takes over and it just knows what to do.'

Maddison Jayne Cazna
Wren arrived early at 33 weeks at 1.7kg and was placed on an incubator at Nadi
Hospital.

'The difficulties we are
facing at the moment are that she is too small to fly weighing in today at just
1.65kg,' Mrs Wren said on Sunday.

'She is under the blue
ray lights in the incubator at the moment being treated for jaundice, and we
will hopefully be able to turn those blue lights off tomorrow or Tuesday.

'Then she has to have
the temperature in the humidicrib turned down bit by bit to see if she can
tolerate the outside air temperature by herself. This will take another few
days. The great news is that she can breath by herself.'

Maddison Jayne Cazna
Wren was born at 33 weeks at 1.7kg and remains in an incubator at Nadi HospitalThe father of Maddison, Ashley Wren, was a groomsman at his
friend's wedding in Nadi and wasn't expecting to be a father so soon

The couple had flown to
Fiji after being granted full permission by doctors in Sydney.

An online campaign has
been launched by their friend to help bring baby Maddi home and cover the
medical expenses for the newborn.

Being so far from home,
Mrs Wren is eternally grateful to the staff at Nadi hospital.

'The treatment for our
beautiful daughter at Nadi Hospital has been so amazing. We are lucky enough to
have been blessed with an Australian/Fijian doctor by the name of Sai Misi
Misi. He is extremely knowledgeable being a pediatrician and has had a lot of
experience with premature babies having worked in Australia for a number of
years.

'The nursing staff have
been so wonderfully loving and caring, and they are totally mesmerised by
having a white baby in their care, which is something they don't get to
experience very often,' she explained.

The family are now
waiting not only to raise enough money to bring Maddi home but also for her to
be strong enough to fly.

An online campaign has
launched to help transport Maddi home, which is believed to cost at least
$60,000.

'To bring Maddi home we
need her to be well enough to fly in an open bassinette (which is Doctor Sai's
preference over bringing the humidicrib on the plane with us) and to be able to
cope with the cabin pressure of the plane.'

The couple may be miles
from their friends and family at home but on Monday Mrs Wren's siter flew in to
Fiji to help out.And she brought with her some much needed clothes for baby
Maddi.

'She was able to bring
with her a couple of little 0000 Bonds wondersuits and some little singlets for
Maddison to wear, which are huge on her, but they were the smallest ones she
could find.

'My beautiful friend
Angela who happens to have a five month old baby and was at the wedding with us
gave us a pink snuggle blanket, some of her baby's nappies and some wipes to
get us through the first couple pf days until we could buy some things for her
ourselves. Also, the beautiful staff at the hospital and the Shearaton Denerau
gave us some of their own baby clothes.'

Mrs Wren's friend Angela
Allison is the person in charge of setting up the fundraising page, which has
so far seen almost $7,000 raised to bring Maddi home.

However, the current
amount is still a long way off the $60,000 needed to cover Maddi's medical
bills and travel costs, plus the extra accommodation and flights for the medic
to travel with them.

6

Medical expenses,
accommodation and flights for the baby won't be covered by travel insurance

Ms Allison told Daily
Mail Australia the new parents have been overwhelmed by support from friends,
family and strangers.

'Now that a few Aussie
celebs have retweeted we are gaining donations from strangers,' she said. 'Initially
it was just friends and family of Ash and Jay and people who read about it via
the shared Facebook link. It's so exciting to watch the amount raise and to
think about how much this is going to mean for them.'

4 comments:

Anonymous
said...

Hi, I agree that it is unclear how much money was needed to fly this family back. I do know that the parents were told they couldn't fly without two medical staff on board the airplane, which would explain part of the $60,000). However, the real reason I'm commenting on this post is that the father of baby Maddi has died of a heart attack. His family, who were already very upset by some of the negative media attention (and did not support the fundraiser), is obviously very distraught so it would help if we could put the Fijian story to an end and give them time to grieve and focus on baby Maddi.

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About Me

Babasiga (pronounced bambasinga) is the dry land of Macuata in northern Fiji - our place in the sun in Fiji. Peceli is from Fiji from the village is Vatuadova and the beach is Nukutatava. Peceli Ratawa passed away on 27th December 2015 so this is Wendy's blog now. Wendy is an Australian and today live in Geelong, Australia.